Transform the Soul and Energy of Your Home with Marlene Zeiger Design

Marlene Zeiger brings your home to life by helping you create a space that reflects your personality, your energy, and your style. Together, you will create a space you never want to leave and that you want to share. Marlene is a brilliant designer and full of creativity, with a special talent for designing the right space for you.

The Creative Soul: You could say that Marlene embodies creativity. She has been in love with beautiful spaces, colors and shapes since she was a child. She vividly recalls the day her mother first decorated their living room as a child, and knowing, almost instinctively, that she wanted to create beauty in space. It’s like her soul is speaking when she designs or even talks of design – you see it in her eyes.

Photo source: Marlene Zeiger

Feeling Beauty: Marlene is also fascinated with psychology and how it intertwines with environment. She loves exploring why certain spaces make us feel the way we do. A space should reflect the person, their passion, and their soul.

Patterns in Space: After earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior design, Marlene studied under the tutelage of Christopher Alexander to earn her Master of Architecture. With Christopher Alexander, one of the authors of the seminal architecture book,A Pattern Language, Marlene studied how design is about patterns and certain fundamental properties in nature, and how to bring those patterns into spaces.

Resonating Beauty: Marlene explains there are 15 fundamental properties in everything alive. She can intuitively look at a space and see how the properties relate and what energy they create. She says, it’s more than putting together a pretty room, but also pushing into the feeling of the space and how it resonates with the soul.

Photo source: Marlene Zeiger

Exploration: For example, Marlene begins each project with a type of exploration of ideas and senses with her clients Through asking questions, bringing mountains of sample fabrics and playing with colors, Marlene begins to see what her clients dream about and find inspirational so she can create a space that is truly special for them.

The Fundamentals: Marlene puts together a comprehensive concept for the space, or multiple concepts, to review with the client. For starters, Marlene is a master at sketching out her thoughts and ideas. She draws elevations and floor plans, and notes architectural features that are either good or detrimental for the space. She’ll consider the lighting and natural light in the space, and of course, works with colors. Colors are a huge part of any design, she says. She plays with ideas until the spirit, feel and energy are right.

Turn-Key Design: Once a concept is selected, Marlene is still there to make sure the space is perfect. She’ll provide as much or as little assistance as the client wants, from complete project management to ad hoc consulting for the DIYers. She is connected with some of the best interior design artisans around, from textile manufacturers to furnishing retailers.

Photo source: Marlene Zeiger

Creative at Heart: Marlene began her career with Vista Volunteers, which is like a domestic Peace Corps for low income teens. She gravitated quickly towards the creative and design projects. She developed theater programs and plays, and did graphic work. Feeling the internal pull towards creative work, she attended the Western Design Institute in San Francisco, where she obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts in design and a minor in psychology.

Finding Portland: Marlene started her own interior design business in the Bay Area several years ago,and spent some time in Southern California as well before moving up to Portland. Marlene followed her daughter to the Pacific Northwest and has been here a few years now. She loves Portland’s neighborhoods and feel.

Photo source: Marlene Zeiger

Creativity is Fun: Not surprisingly, Marlene loves to test her creativity in the kitchen too. Naturally, she loves beautifully prepared food, and she enjoys watching cooking shows and reading. But mostly, she says, she enjoys design. It is her passion and joy. She loves it just as much now as when she started down this path 30 years ago. Marlene is an artist, who lives to create beautiful spaces for living in.

Learn more about Marlene at www.zeigerdesign.com. Even better, send her a note to marlenezeiger@gmail.com, or give her a call at 971-303-8131.